Britons searched for Amazon's Kindle more than other gadget in 2012, beating
competition from Apple's iPad and iPhone.

The Yahoo! UK Year in Review for 2012 reflects the crazes and changing tastes of the nation's consumers, with Amazon's Kindle e-reader ranking third in overall searches, in "no small part," according to the search engine, to million-selling S&M favourite Fifty Shades of Grey.

The release of the Kindle Fire HD and Paperwhite sparked a renewed interest in the products this year, although new versions of the iPad and iPhone were also launched in 2012.

The novel also ranked seventh on the top news stories of the year.

The most searched for topic overall in 2012 was the Olympics, followed by Liverpool FC, the club embroiled in the Luis Suarez racism row and the subject of the Hillsborough report released in September.

The Duchess of Wales was also a highly ranked search term at number five, though unfortunately not for her charitable activities or dress sense this year, but for the topless photos of her that circulated in September.

Nick Petche, Senior News Editor, said: "2012 was clearly the year of sport, with Brits swept up by the excitement of the London Olympics online.

"Gadget geeks searching for the latest iPhone and iPad saw technology searches hit the news headlines as well as our most searched list overall.

"However the newcomer to the search charts was Kindle - no doubt fuelled by its latest incarnation which introduces a full colour HD screen and video. It was also helped by the fascination around ebooks, particularly the bestseller Fifty Shades of Grey.

"It’s also no surprise to see Kate Middleton making the top 10 – while those photos did increase her search ratings, her popularity has grown exponentially this year and I think we’ll only see this continue looking ahead to 2013," he added.

Yahoo! accounts for just over three per cent of searches in the UK, behind Microsoft's Bing, on less than five percent, and market leader Google, which is used for more than 90 per cent of British searches.